[00:00:04] Speaker A: Id the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome to id the future. Im your host, Andrew McDermott. Today im going to read for you an excerpt from the new book the farm at the center of the Universe by astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez and author Jonathan Wittgenstein. Its the first novel for teens and young adults to be published by Discovery Institute Press. The book centers on a weekend in the life of Isaac, a teenager still reeling from the untimely death of his father. His cousin Charlie, a science teacher, suggests a few days at the grandparents farm might do him some good. Charlie also hopes the realities of life on a farm will help him convince Isaac that a darwinian view of life is the most sensible view. It's all about weeding out the weak so the strong can thrive and evolve, Charlie tells Isaac on the drive into the countryside. Nature doesn't care about your feelings. Nature doesn't care about your survival. Nature just does what it does with no regard for you. So you'd better be ready. But at the farm, Isaac finds himself caught in a battle of wits between Charlie and his grandfather, and facing a choice he alone can make.
Before I jump into the reading, let me introduce the authors to you. You may recognize Guillermo Gonzalez as co author, with Jay Richards, of the popular 2004 book the Privileged Planet, which bucks the prevailing narrative about planet Earth being an insignificant speck in an uncaring universe with remarkable evidence of fine tuning and design from contemporary astronomy and physics. Gonzalez is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture. He received his PhD in astronomy in 1993 from the University of Washington. He has done postdoctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin, and at the University of Washington, and has received fellowships, grants, and awards from such institutions as NASA, the Templeton foundation, the University of Washington, and the National Science foundation. His co author on this book is Jonathan Witt, executive editor of Discovery Institute Press and a senior fellow and senior project manager with Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture. Witt has written fiction and non fiction for a wide variety of venues. His books include the Hobbit Party, intelligent design, uncensored, and a meaningful how the arts and sciences reveal the genius of nature. He was also the lead writer for the award winning documentary Poverty, Inc. My reading today starts at the beginning of chapter two, which came first. It takes place on the first morning of Isaacs weekend at his grandparents farm.
Someone was nudging Isaac. Day comes early on a farm, Grandpa whispered. Time to roll out of bed. It was barely dawn when they headed out to the chicken coop to collect eggs. Grandpa showed Isaac how to reach through the small doors on hinges and pick up the eggs without disturbing the hens. One or two pecked him hard, but most of them ignored his intrusion. Next they headed to the barn, where a tall, thin man was connecting tubes to the cows. Udders? Milking machines, Isaac figured, Grandpa said. This is Roy, my right hand man. Roy, this is my grandson, Isaac. Roy tipped his baseball cap. Step over here, Isaac. While Bessie's waiting her turn on the machine, I'll show you the old timey method. Bessie's usually pretty cooperative. Roy squatted beside the cow, and with a nod from Grandpa, Isaac approached just as he came beside Roy and was about to crouch down beside him. Something splattered in Isaac's face. Hey. He exclaimed, jumping back.
Don't you like milk? Roy asked innocently, though not without a mischievous grin slipping onto his face. After a moment, Isaac found himself grinning back. Yes, but I prefer mine in a glass, he said with a laugh. I'll have to get the barn cats to train you. They know how to catch a squirt right in the mouth. It's their payment for mice caught and killed. He sent another stream Isaac's way, which Isaac gamely dodged. So what are you paying me for? Isaac said. I'm paying you ahead of time. Your granddad promises me you won't be just dead weight around here. No, sir, Grandpa said. Isaac is my champion pack mule. He handed Isaac a gallon jar of fresh milk to carry back to the kitchen, along with a basket of eggs, which he looped over Isaac's arm. Back at the house, they found Charlie seated at the kitchen table, sipping coffee while Grandma bustled about putting breakfast on the table. When they were all seated, they said, grace, and then Grandpa signaled to Isaac to serve himself and start the food around the milk. Cows have it pretty easy, I guess, Isaac said. To make conversation. That's the closest I've ever been to one. The life of a farm animal is simple, said Grandpa. Eat, sleep, poop, make babies, repeat. But the life in the animal is anything but simple. He plucked an egg out of the basket. Consider this simple egg. Hidden in its cells are instructions to grow into an adult chicken. If we could unwind the instructions, they'd fill enough books for an entire bookshelf. You've heard the riddle. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Sure, said Isaac. So what's the answer? Well, a chicken grows from an egg, but an egg comes from a chicken. So how does evolution get something like that started? There's also this. A female chicken won't lay an egg that develops into a chick without a male chicken. So really, you need two chickens and an egg if the chicken species is going to make a go of it. This sort of problem crops up all over the place in biology enough that it has a name. The chicken and egg problem. In the end, you have to say that life comes from life. Charlie cut in. Nowadays, sure, nowadays life does come from life. But on the early earth, life started from non life chemicals. Then it was evolution by baby steps. A tiny mutation in one generation, then another tiny mutation two or three generations later, on and on, for millions of years. Mutation and natural selection. Survival of the fittest. That's evolution.
Grandpa buttered a piece of toast as he answered. Presto changeo. Just like that, only in slow motion. Color me skeptical. The small, wry smile that Grandma gave Isaac from across the table told them this was not a new argument between the two. How do you explain sudden life where there was no life? Grandpa asked, leaning forward. And how do you explain all the specific little mutations? I just told you, said Charlie, reaching for the jam. Random mutations. Natural selection. You said that? Yes. But what is the particular evolutionary pathway to build all that? The particular random mutations? Just start with a hen. Isaac blinked, and Grandpa winked at him. Charlie crossed his arms. Since he was a middle school teacher, built like a linebacker, he wasnt used to being challenged. Well, I cant tell you the specifics, he said. Im not a chicken evolution expert. Im just telling you they have it all worked out. Grandpa finished his toast as he considered. Back in my teaching days, Grandma interrupted him with a laugh. You make it sound like it was a hundred years ago. You retired three years ago. Isaac tried to remember what his dad had told him about grandpas job. Abuelo, what kind of teacher were you? Isaac asked. Grandma was at the stove writing a casserole to go into the oven. Oh, your grandfather was a chemistry professor? Had his own lab at the university and everything, and I never blew myself up even once, said Grandpa with mock seriousness. One nice thing about my work was that I got to rub shoulders with professors from many fields. If I had a question about Shakespeare, there was a Shakespeare scholar two tables over in the faculty dining hall. A question about astronomy. I passed an astronomer on the way to class every Tuesday and Thursday. I had many questions about biology, and so I had many conversations with biologists. Most of these fellows, like Charlie, believed evolution explained all this. He gestured out the window so I would ask them about the chicken and egg problem because I wanted to understand not just about chickens and their eggs, but other things too. Anything where you need a to get b, but you need b to get a, and without both, the other can survive. How would slow going evolution conjure up both of them? Do it at close to the same time and get them coordinated and running smoothly? What are some examples? Asked Isaac. Besides, you know, actual chickens and eggs? Grandpa thought for a moment, and then, clearly getting an idea, he reached over and squeezed Isaacs arm. Here's an interesting one to work right. Your muscles and other tissues in your body and in every animal's body need oxygen. But the tissues can't get enough oxygen without this cunning little protein called hemoglobin. The recipe for hemoglobin requires iron, and your bone marrow is where fresh hemoglobin is cooked up. Now here's where you run into a problem. If you want nature to evolve this system, one manageable little step at a time. The iron you need to make hemoglobin comes into your blood through your digestive system, and that blood has to be pumped by your heart to deliver the iron to your bone marrow. But for your heart to manage this, it needs a lot of oxygen, which it gets thanks to iron rich hemoglobin. Without hemoglobin and the iron it contains to carry enough oxygen to the heart, the heart couldn't pump enough iron rich blood to the hemoglobin factory in the bone marrow. So how did hemoglobin evolve in the first place and get fitted into this complex system when nature needs hemoglobin to make hemoglobin? Grandpa paused and then asked, does your brain have room for one more example? Isaac grinned. Go ahead. If my brain explodes. Well, no. The answer was no. Okay, well, this one you could call the granddaddy of all chicken and egg problems. The abuelo of all chicken and egg problems, Isaac interjected. Grandpa laughed. Sure. The abuelo of all chicken and egg problems. Here goes. All life is run on biological information, like the code you find in computer software. It's run using what's known as DNA. DNA is the stuff detectives collect to try to identify who was at the scene of a crime. Your DNA is unique to you. Charlie's DNA is unique to Charlie. Each of us has his own unique DNA software program in our cells. No DNA, no life. But you need DNA to make what's known as RNA. And you need rna to make all the different protein machines your body needs to survive. And you need proteins to make DNA and RNA. Round and round it goes. You need all of them for all of them to work and keep you alive. Evolutionists have tried to come up with workarounds to explain how evolution could have managed all this. Maybe things started off with RNA and evolved from there. They say it's called the rna world hypothesis, but even the evolutionists can't agree on the idea. It's so far fetched. Grandpa shook some oregano onto his scrambled eggs and took a bite. And it gets even worse, he said the moment he had swallowed. You need dozens of different types of enzymes to make DNA, but it takes DNA to make enzymes. We could fill a book with these sorts of problems. Someone might think evolutionists probably have solved most of these, and there are just a handful of puzzlers they're still trying to solve. No, they have not solved any of the really thorny ones. The best they've done is offer vague stories with very many missing steps. So the question how could mindless evolution have built these systems? Bit by bit, until the system is up and running, plants and animals don't have a chance. I asked the evolutionists at my university a lot of questions like this until it got to where they ran when they saw me coming.
Nonsense, said Grandma, swatting him on the shoulder with her dish towel. Some of them were your good friends. Grampa nodded and shrugged. At least on days when we all woke up on the right side of the bed. But I would ask them these questions. These were experts, mind you, PhD biologists. And they all gave me the same answer in one form or another. There was a pause. Grandpa waited, glancing around the table expectantly. Charlie stared at his plate. What was it? Said Isaac. What was their answer? The same answer Charlie gave. Grandpa beamed at him. Each one said he or she wasnt an expert on that particular issue, but that some evolutionist somewhere was sure to have it all worked out. Isaac took a bite of his bacon to hide his smile. He was pretty sure Grandpa had set this whole thing up to mess with Charlie. And when I finally found a specialist on one of these systems, said Grandpa, he said, biologists are still working on that problem. But evolutionists have it all worked out most everywhere else. I did some digging in the science journals, and it was more of the same. The proof was always just around the corner, just over the next rise, just past the next bend. The answers were always of the trust me, trust science variety. Charlie looked up. So all of science is wrong, he said, his tone tight. You're right and science is wrong. That it not science, said Grampa. I'm saying the scientific evidence is telling us that mindless evolution didn't build all those ingenious chicken and egg systems. Scientists are supposed to follow the evidence, but scientists are only human. A lot of scientists love the theory of evolution, and they dont want to toss it overboard. You think the theory of evolution is a mistake? Charlie spoke as if Grampa had said the earth was flat. Everyone makes mistakes, Grandma said comfortingly, patting Charlie's shoulder. Even scientists. The comment did not comfort Charlie. The look on his face made that clear. But grandpa was nodding and spoke next. The history of science is the history of mistakes. You make a mistake, you try something else. Nobody could do science properly if he assumed science already had everything right. Wed never discover anything new. Charlie rose from the breakfast table, shaking his head as if he couldnt believe his ears. Im not going to argue over settled science. Dont want to spoil a good breakfast. He thanked Grandma for the meal and went out onto the front porch. Isaacs grandparents shared a look. Isaac thought it best to keep his mouth shut, though he had a lot of questions. Had Grandpa and Charlie argued about this in the past? Who knew more science, Charlie or grandpa? If two scientists who both knew a lot about something disagreed, how could non scientists ever hope to figure out what was true?
That was a reading from the farm at the center of the universe, a new novel for teens and young adults from astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez and author Jonathan Witt. It's available in paperback and ebook formats. You can purchase a copy of the book for yourself, your teenager, or a friend at Discovery Press. That's Discovery Press. And don't miss my interview with Guillermo and Jonathan for id the future, look for that episode in audio form through your favorite podcast player, and in video form at the Discovery Science YouTube channel. That's the YouTube channel of Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture, jam packed with videos covering all aspects of intelligent design and the debate over evolution. The Discovery Science channel on YouTube for id the future, I'm Andrew McDermott. Thanks for listening.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Visit
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